Schools Cannot Do It Alone: Chapter 3

So, here’s what I’m going to do: As I read each chapter I’m going to summarize its main points and important quotes/ideas. I think once you start reading you’re going to want to hear the rest. As we go through the book, I hope it sparks discussion and, at the very least, makes you feel more understood and appreciated like it has for me. Furthermore, I firmly believe that the message of this book needs to be our central mission as we go forward at the local, state, and federal level as we take the lead in the direction of education and its reform.

You can read the rest of Scott’s proposal here.

PART ONE
FROM CRITIC TO ALLY
CHAPTER 3
An Aide for a Day

Human beings form assumptions to make sense of the world. Not all of our assumptions are correct. Over time, erroneous assumptions can coalesce to create cognitive illusions — distorted perceptions of reality. We accept things as facts that just ain’t so.

Our illusions are dangerous because they subvert our power of reasoning. They warp our worldview without our knowing it. We can make little progress toward comprehending the truth until they are identified and corrected.

My assumption regarding the problem with our schools is a perfect example. It grew out of superficial media coverage, political spin, my belief in the power of the free market, my suspicions about the efficiency of public institutions, and my near total lack of understanding of what actually goes on in our schools. All these elements combined to convince me that our educators were the primary obstacles to reform. Teachers sat in their pension-feathered nests cloaked in tenure. Administrators shielded themselves behind a monopolistic bureaucracy where they used government rules and regulations as excuses for inertia. The only way we were going to get world-class schools was to hold these people accountable and force them to improve. I believed it all, and I said it all.

In the months that followed, I took tours of school buildings. I sat through board meetings that extended into the wee hours of the morning. I watched a principal and members of his staff fill out a mountain of forms required by the state and federal governments. I attended faculty meetings, and in doing so, I learned why teachers say that they hope to die in one.

Every visit was instructive and influenced my views. But the crushing blow came from a superintendent in a district on the Mississippi who invited me to spend an entire day working in his schools.

The day started with my doing bus duty at the elementary school, after which I was escorted to a third grade classroom to be a teacher’s aide. I spent the morning working with twenty-seven eight-year-olds, including one severe asthmatic, one confirmed victim of sexual assault, four identified with ADHD, two requiring speech therapy, and one sweet girl with cerebral palsy who required a full inclusion team. Sitting was not on the agenda.

At noon I was taken to lunch. They took me to the teachers’ lounge: a bunch of harried grownups using twenty minutes to inhale food, gossip, and cut out paper pumpkins, turkeys, wreaths, hearts, or shamrocks depending on the season. I managed to eat my sandwich and squeeze in a quick trip to the men’s room — my only one of the day — before running to be a playground monitor.

After lunch, I was taken to a middle school to work with eighth graders. Some looked like babies. Some, especially the young woman wearing a halter top and green eye shadow, looked twenty-three. I have since determined that no one is qualified to criticize public schools unless he or she has been locked in a room with a similar group.

When the final bell rang. I nearly wept with joy.

I was spared having to do any of the after-school chores that are routine for most teachers; I was not asked to grade papers, prepare lessons, or supervise extracurricular activities. Instead, the superintendent took me to his office to meet with his board president and the president of the local teachers’ association.

I was exhausted. I had not spent an entire day on my feet in years. My shoulders ached. My shins hurt. My hair was sticking out on the sides. I would have offered my firstborn for Advil and caffeine, and I wouldn’t have turned down a beaker full of gin.

In retrospect I realize that my hosts had taken a risk by inviting me to come. They gambled that anyone who worked in a school even for one day could not fail to be awed by the rigors of the job or moved by the effort and dedication of the people who teach.

I broke the silence. “This is hard, isn’t it? I have one question,” I said. “Is what I saw and what I experienced typical?”

“It is,” the superintendent said, “for ninety percent of the staff, ninety percent of the time.”

I felt a shift in my psyche, deep down where my cognitive illusions reside.

Admittedly, the day was harder for me because I was unprepared, but there was no way that anyone could walk away from this experience and argue that he educators were indifferent. Everyone I saw was working hard. Really hard.

Once again, I drove away from a school faced with the strong possibility that I’d been wrong.(I was getting tired of that.) I saw no teachers and administrators who were lazy or apathetic. I had no way of knowing if they were employing state-of-the-art practices in their classrooms, but they were smart, dedicated, and professional — intently focused on helping their students succeed. I was, however, still faced with the fact that something was wrong. Our schools were becoming dangerously out of sync with the needs of the time.

I continued to accept invitations to visit other districts, but I began to listen more than speak. Soon, I had too much evidence contradicting my assumptions to sweep under the rug. My illusion gave way, and an unnerving question began to form in its place. What if we do not have a people problem? What if the problem is deep in the system?

This thought was sobering on two counts. First, it suggested that thirty years of reform initiatives aimed at changing behavior via performance incentives, teacher-proof materials, site-based councils, raised standards, wall-to-wall testing, and school takeovers were missing the core problem, which would explain a lot. Second, and much more vexing, fixing a people problem was a formidable challenge, but restructuring a massive, heavily regulated, culturally entrenched system was a task that was harder by a factor of a thousand.